’Bullshit, how is anything you just said my fault?’ Brenden complained as he threw the Cultist’s corpses into his inventory and followed me out of the room, but not before grabbing hold of his friend and dragging him along.
’You were the one who tossed me a hail-mary pass down the field.’ I said while calmly walking down the bloodstained hallway.
’No, no, I told you to TALK to him, not fucking corrupt him; look at Sonas, hes completely broken…holy…tell me you didn’t use your talent on him!’
’Didn’t have to, honestly, the fact that he was so easily brought on the path of killing is a little concerning; all it took from me was a few short analogies that he could relate to, and now he will take lives…do you not see an issue there, because, to me, it lays the groundwork for an underlying psychosis.’
’…listen…Taylor, hes just a simple guy,’
’Nope, don’t wanna hear it, I don’t care enough to be bothered, he could become the next S-Class Villain for all I care, it means nothing to me, he’s your friend; deal with the fallout yourself.’
’Now then…’ coming to a fork in the hallway, we had two options, head toward the Gym, and deal with that cluster fuck, or head deeper into the school, where we could already hear the faint sounds of fighting and the occasional rifle shot.
"Piniki is at the gym; you are to take the right hall, and I will be hunting down more cultists." Without bothering to wait for a response, I jogged off toward the leftmost hallway, leaving my brother and his idiot friend to their own devices.
Right as my perception range was about to lose track of my brother, I saw him and Sonnasitc head down the right hallway and make their way to the Gym, and just like that, I was on my own again.
Unfortunately, as is with everything in my life, whenever something is going well, something stupid as fuck happens, only this time, it came to me through the earpiece.
(Nexus, we have a problem; reports are coming in from all over the state of Colorado. There are dozens of terror plots occurring simultaneously; they aren’t focused around Columbine High School.)
’Great….ok, we knew something like this would happen, Taylor, especially after finding a bracelet on Harvy’s arm. Draven has been working hard behind the scenes; he sent all his returners, or at the very least, a large percentage of them here, to CHS. Meanwhile, he kept all his pawns scattered around the state to wreak havoc…but the question is why.’
’What is he trying to achieve by generating large-scale chaos…unless he wants to take over Colorado as a whole and use it as the basis for his new stupid ideals.’
Just then, a sudden thought popped into my mind, which caused a shiver to run down my back as I instantly ran the probability of its viability.
’The prerogative of Draven’s cult is to create a Haven for Particles...how would he do it, particle stones? No, he would need to have spent years mining out every single Instance he could with thousands of returners; let’s assume that he has a little under 200 returners on his side, and that’s a generous assumption that means every single waking hour of those 200 would need to be spent within instances, constantly clearing them before mining.’
’in that case, he would have an army of Beta or higher Returners and, so far, the only ones even remotely close to Beta-Rank are the Squad leaders who are max level for Alpha-Rank…so that’s out of the question.’
Updat𝒆d fr𝑜m freewebnøvel.com.
’Items…items…are there any items Draven could have found that I didn’t….’
"DIE HEROO!" I was wandering through the halls, lost in thought; of course, some idiot would spot me, and since anything that moved and wasn’t wearing one of those homunculus bracelets was a target…and I was in a Hero-esk outfit, I was a walking cultist magnet.
Only…
Fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh
SLAM
Puchi Puchi Puchi Puchi Puchi
I was having none of it; without even acknowledging the Cultist’s existence, I waved my hand and silently cast Geo-Spikes, making five arm-sized spikes that impaled the idiot to the lockers, one in each limb and the last through his head, killing the Mid-Alpha-Ranker before he could even take a second breath, or register I had attacked.
(Nexus, report, what do we do? This is a large-scale plot by Partaevian. Do we stay here and try to mitigate the civilian casualties or move to other sites.) Brenden’s voice came next, and in the background, I could hear Piniki barking orders to different people.
(I finally broke through the blockage, but SWAT is held up with red tape. Since there are only two local teams, the argument with the higher-ups is about whether or not they send aid to CHS or Denver; apparently, a massive bomb went off in the center of downtown, wiping out ten city blocks.)
(It sounds like a Beta-Grade Particle Grenade, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a massive fertilizer bomb or something; we don’t know what kind of resources Draven has gotten his hands on.)
(So it’s confirmed that Draven is behind all this?) My father questioned as I heard multiple voices shouting and trying to wrangle control of the situation in the background.
(I was able to extract some information from one of the lower-ranked Cultists. He said the guy’s name was Dragon, and with how low on the intelligence spectrum he was, I’m 90% certain he misheard the name, and it was actually Draven in charge.)
(How many returners did you face, Jax, and what is their status.) I asked before dealing with a second sneak attack. This time, the Cultist played the part of an assassin, waiting till I walked by before jumping out behind me and trying to stab me in the back.
He was easily dispatched like the first, with five spikes ending his life in the blink of an eye.
(8 and 14 civilians wearing bracelets…what is up with that, by the way.)
(From what I can tell, Draven has been experimenting with the bracelets and somehow learned that if he uses the upper-stage homunculus, they can empower non-Rankers. My assumption is he has been kidnapping anyone he can get his ands on, be they junkies or extremists from online, and after brainwashing them, he gives them power, typical villain shit if you ask me.)